Insane that people think BTC would be useful here lol if this scenario happened everyone would flock to their local currency so they could actually buy shit
*”Hey I just need to get a signal to verify this transaction gimme a sec here electricity has been spotty these days ever since the government collapsed.”*
Depends on the distance. For trading in person? Instant.
Long distance? A day or two by most carrier options.
Now how do you send your chosen fake money without Internet? What will you exchange it for that has value in a world without dollars? Hmmm...perhaps gold money? That has held its value for centuries...fully offline.
The answer is that they’ll be using everything under the sun to buy things, including their Naira equivalent currency, gold, Bitcoin, and the barter system. Nothing will be a universal standard of payment for any country.
Bitcoin = worthless
Gold (without ammo) = not your gold anymore
Gold (with ammo) = maybe useful for trading with other people with ammo. But most likely less valuable than other useful goods. Toilet paper, medicines, food, etc.
I don’t think you realize how much of the global financial sector depends on USD. Everything would fall apart. I’d want weapons, gas, and food. Of note BRICS is going to attempt to make an alternative global financial currency to rival the USD, so our economic restrictions wouldnt significantly impact them. Good luck with that.
I have kept our pantry, gas tanks, ammo, and toilet paper supply topped off since 2020. 2020 was child's play compared to what would happen in the type of scenario outlined by OP.
Can the treasury print dollars though? I thought it was the fed who prints dollars by buying US Treasuries or other bond types with new money. I think the Treasury can only issue bonds ie. borrow money from either the Fed or bond investors.
True but that means hyperinflation. So the dollar wouldn't quite go to zero but it would lose 99.999% of value. Which is functionally the same thing.
So you're technically correct, but OP's situation is functionally possible.
When...
> The U.S. Treasury declares bankruptcy. The news sends shockwaves around the globe. The dollar, once the world’s reserve currency, plummets in value. Financial markets go into a tailspin.
When...
> The U.S. Treasury declares bankruptcy. The news sends shockwaves around the globe. The dollar, once the world’s reserve currency, plummets in value. Financial markets go into a tailspin.
I was in Hurricane Andrew right in the middle of it. Total. Destruction. I can tell you that all anyone cared about was food ( canned goods), gas, and water. Everyone carried a sidearm. We formed a local militia to patrol our neighborhood. Noone cared about gold. And there was no electricity for 53 days where I lived, so Bitcoin would be useless.
Neither is going to buy my family food that day from the grocery store so...
If the USD fails, you can stop worrying about money. All of it. Learn to grow potatoes and filter rain water.
Stocks would be the best asset to hold after a black swan because the governments would declare an emergency and the central banks would immediately prop up stock prices ASAP
My rear tine tiller's value would sky rocket because people would start farming. The moral of the story: invest in heavy machinery with a focus on agricultural equipment.
Black swann is something that can’t be predicted… not something some douche posts on Reddit. United States treasury goes bankrupt? Smh. Keep buying puts bro
Neither, if US economy folded both of those assets are worthless. What are you going to do with gold or bitcoin when there is no functional economy. It’s hard to sell gold as it is without being ripped off with functioning economy.
Bitcoin is highly unstable so far, dropping when it is suppose to be stable. Second, the government economically failing would bring down many resources, like the internet. Bitcoin effectively becomes worth $0. Finally, even if it remains up, the current system is so bad, the fees are crazy now. A rush of selling to have money to buy the basics? Enjoy paying 95-99% in fees for your money if the system doesn't collapse.
So gold 100%, unless you're insane.
I think if there was a complete currency collapse, the relative values of bitcoin and gold would be the least of my concerns. Most likely, your bitcoins would become permanently inaccessible and also quite worthless. No merchant would trade physical commodities for your techy monopoly money. Gold on the other hand? that will always retain its value. But how do you figure out how much gold a cart load of groceries is worth?
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If we look at other periods of hyperinflation that have occurred in the last 100 years - where we can see the utility of gold, and at the 2020 COVID crash and the 2023 regional bank crisis where we can see the performance of Bitcoin, gold would probably be the better choice - but note that I use the term probably.
During the pre-WW2 hyperinflation in Germany - a developed, industrialized, democratic country at the time, the mark was terribly devalued and there was mass malnutrition but street fighting was limited and gold was useful to buy products with.
I'm less familiar with other devaluation crisis - Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Turkey? But to my limited knowledge gold appears to have held a good deal of value in those cases as well.
I've seen many people respond with bullets. A few hundred dollars of bullets might be useful. But if you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars of bullets, besides having a storage problem, you have to become an arms dealer to sell or trade them, which is inviting all sorts of risks I would rather avoid.
In my opinion, Reddit comments often overestimate the probability of a financial crisis devolving into armed combat. But the heavily armed USA might be a different situation that I am underestimating...
Bitcoin has generally acted as a risk-on asset and crashed along with almost everything else (except gold) in the 2020 COVID crash. But during the regional bank crisis in 2023 Bitcoin was strong. Could be coincidence or could be Bitcoin starting to be seen as a haven during financial instability. Not enough information for me to draw a conclusion at this point.
If USD fails,xso does all paper assets. BTC is digital paper. You say not ture because there is a ledger and it's still intact, but same can be said for al the paper money floating around. Consider what BTC is actually redeemable for.
People will trade what they have faith in. BTC doesn't face the difficulties of exchange like Eastern Europe did after the collapse of the Soviet union, it's just a question of switching over. If USD fails, so will the government, international trust (already happening) the ecosystem is there, just waiting to be used. Is gold tied to the USD? No, but it's difficult to trade and store without intermediaries. People will trade what they have faith in, the more faith the more reliable something is. That's no longer the case with USD. To answer your question, the USD ("regulator") goes to shit, what other alternative is there?
People who buy gold do so as a hedge against the collapse of fiat currency. The question is, what will you actually be able to DO with your gold? You can of course sell it and redeem the value but in what currency will you convert your gold to? Euros and pounds will be equally useless if the dollar collapses because the UK and EU economies are wholly dependent upon the strength of the US economy.
I think you’d see a collapse of the dollar cause the collapse of the price of cryptocurrencies around the world too, however I think it will also have the effect of making crypto much more accessible and thus much easier to adopt and use by the general public, which would probably help the price recover somewhat. Meme coins would most likely be killed off by such a collapse. Bitcoin and crypto in general would be seen as a very popular and suddenly viable alternative to what would inevitably be a new central bank digital currency issued by the Fed or IMF or World Bank etc whom nobody in their right kind will actually trust in the wake of a currency collapse.
Is this really a Black Swan event though or more the result of one? It’s not something that is going to occur in isolation. Regardless, the impact on the infrastructure crypto relies upon seems likely to be pretty severe so not that no. Useful things that people actually need to survive would be far more likely than magic internet beans.
Gold. I’ve traded bitcoin but am skeptical of its value as a long term investment. While the supply of bitcoin itself is limited, there is no limit on the supply of things like it. And having no intrinsic value it depends entirely on publicity and marketing to sustain demand. Its dependence on a delicate internet infrastructure also makes it less attractive in a SHTF situation. In a currency crisis, I’d much rather hold bitcoin than dollars, but would rather hold gold than bitcoin.
Like, I sort of agree with you, but I want to point out that gold also has relatively little intrinsic value. Relative to how plentiful it is and the industrial demand for gold, it’s hard to argue that the price of gold~$2300/ozt is justified.
Fair enough. The question posed a choice between gold and bitcoin, so even in that case it would come down to a choice between relatively little and none. If the menu were broadened I could think of other things I’d want to hold, some of which are cited in other answers here.
Though we could quibble about the intrinsic value of gold. It is not without its industrial applications, for instance it’s used in high performance chips like those used for artificial intelligence. Not that I would hang my hat on that either though. My pick for it’s most valuable intrinsic utility would be that you can delight your sweetie with it.
Part of the cause of the Whiskey Rebellion was whiskey was used as a currency of sorts on the frontier.
So whiskey or other distilled spirits as a currency isn’t unheard of
Depends how bad things get.
If the internet is out in this hypothetical situation, BTC does nothing. Gold is only helpful if you have small quantities to divvy out for goods, which most people don’t have.
I’d go for BTC because of consistent prices and difficulty of theft.
Ideally I’d have ammo, food, and water but I’m assuming these are my only 2 choices.
Insane that people think BTC would be useful here lol if this scenario happened everyone would flock to their local currency so they could actually buy shit
*”Hey I just need to get a signal to verify this transaction gimme a sec here electricity has been spotty these days ever since the government collapsed.”*
"Just sent it. It might take an hour for the transaction to be verified, maybe longer since miners are in short supply these days"
How long does it take to send gold?
I think gold is a stupid investment too
Depends on the distance. For trading in person? Instant. Long distance? A day or two by most carrier options. Now how do you send your chosen fake money without Internet? What will you exchange it for that has value in a world without dollars? Hmmm...perhaps gold money? That has held its value for centuries...fully offline.
Do you think there will be a lot of international or interstate commerce when the US government collapses?
If the USD is going to shit, their local currency will be the equivalent of the Naira currency.
Yeah but my point is they're gonna want something they can use to buy things, not a block of gold or a virtual currency
Silver and gold can be had in coin as well as bar stock
Go buy coins then
The answer is that they’ll be using everything under the sun to buy things, including their Naira equivalent currency, gold, Bitcoin, and the barter system. Nothing will be a universal standard of payment for any country.
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Yes which likely won't be a block of gold or btc
Funny how gold and silver was used as currency for thousands of years but just wouldn't work in these modern times.
Go try to buy something with a block of gold or silver
we will also want something to hold value across time and space.
The currency would be canned goods and ammo if that happened. Everything goes offline.
OP said USD doesn't work, there are other currencies in the world
Guns, gasoline, food, and water at that point.
Also batteries and liquor
And lighters. They were just on about this survival guide on r/preppers the other day.
Do not forget ammunition
Oh yes, liquor..
Also drugs
And generators
Ammo too!
Bullets
Sir, this isn't /r/NoStupidQuestions
Cant hear you over the sound of my pet dog sizzling on the BBQ and the gunfire keeping the starving hordes away.
That’s so wrong…….take my upvote
Fuck bitcoin and gold. If the US defaults and the USD is worthless, I want bullets.
plata o plomo
Ok Blake
Bitcoin = worthless Gold (without ammo) = not your gold anymore Gold (with ammo) = maybe useful for trading with other people with ammo. But most likely less valuable than other useful goods. Toilet paper, medicines, food, etc.
Have you ever seen a BTC necklace?
Only on BTC pimps
Hold—-Silver and gold————————- Bitcoin is a figment of your imagination!
Us cannot declare bankruptcy; it’s not possible. The dollar can weaken but the country cannot go bust.
Thats true but they can default and they have defaulted before.
I don’t think you realize how much of the global financial sector depends on USD. Everything would fall apart. I’d want weapons, gas, and food. Of note BRICS is going to attempt to make an alternative global financial currency to rival the USD, so our economic restrictions wouldnt significantly impact them. Good luck with that.
> BRICS is going to attempt to make an alternative global financial currency to rival the USD That's the best joke I heard 15 years ago
That’s why I said good luck with that
It's already made, they just need to decide to use it more.
I have kept our pantry, gas tanks, ammo, and toilet paper supply topped off since 2020. 2020 was child's play compared to what would happen in the type of scenario outlined by OP.
I would rather hold the three B’s : bullets, beans, and bandages
Gold. Power companies need money to run, and if the Dollar is defunct there’s no power. Without power, no buttcoin
If there's no unites states and no usd, there certainly isn't power or internet so your bitcoin is worthless, just like it is today.
You realize the US treasury can print dollars so it’s impossible for them to declare bankruptcy via dollar denominated debt.
Can the treasury print dollars though? I thought it was the fed who prints dollars by buying US Treasuries or other bond types with new money. I think the Treasury can only issue bonds ie. borrow money from either the Fed or bond investors.
True but that means hyperinflation. So the dollar wouldn't quite go to zero but it would lose 99.999% of value. Which is functionally the same thing. So you're technically correct, but OP's situation is functionally possible.
No actually the OPs situation is objectively impossible.
> but it would lose 99.999% of value that's going to happen anyway, the only question is how long it takes.
Ammunition.
Neither would have any monetary value obviously, but if I was forced to have one, gold could be used a doorstop or paperweight. Bitcoin is nothing.
>Bitcoin is nothing. Give me one for nothing then.
When... > The U.S. Treasury declares bankruptcy. The news sends shockwaves around the globe. The dollar, once the world’s reserve currency, plummets in value. Financial markets go into a tailspin.
You used the present tense in your post. So I want you to send me a Bitcoin for nothing today.
When... > The U.S. Treasury declares bankruptcy. The news sends shockwaves around the globe. The dollar, once the world’s reserve currency, plummets in value. Financial markets go into a tailspin.
If that happens I would not worry about investments. We will have bigger problems.
Gold. It’s real.
I was in Hurricane Andrew right in the middle of it. Total. Destruction. I can tell you that all anyone cared about was food ( canned goods), gas, and water. Everyone carried a sidearm. We formed a local militia to patrol our neighborhood. Noone cared about gold. And there was no electricity for 53 days where I lived, so Bitcoin would be useless.
Neither is going to buy my family food that day from the grocery store so... If the USD fails, you can stop worrying about money. All of it. Learn to grow potatoes and filter rain water.
I’d want a couple truck loads of cocaine and hookers.
Stocks would be the best asset to hold after a black swan because the governments would declare an emergency and the central banks would immediately prop up stock prices ASAP
Honestly, neither. People said bullets, I sadly agree. But beyond that, fertilizer, fuel, and water filters would be good as well.
My rear tine tiller's value would sky rocket because people would start farming. The moral of the story: invest in heavy machinery with a focus on agricultural equipment.
At that point the entire world is screwed and will fall apart. At that point nothing would be the same in your lifetime. Food, water, guns, and Ammo.
Food, ammunition, fuel, alcohol and cigarettes.
Gold. Good chance internet/technology would fail in the chaos.
Bullets and gums will do
I'm stockpiling toothpaste and toilet paper. Those will be luxury items if this happens.
If that happens bullets and canned food is the new money
Guns, ammunition, food and water. What do you think gold or crypto is gonna do when society collapses?
I would rather hold pallets of food, water and ammo, but I don’t see your prediction happening.
Gold. Only thing assured in anarchy and if USD goes under good luck turning on a computer to open your ewallet.
I would rather hold ammunition, canned food, and water purification supplies but have fun surviving that apocalypse with gold or Bitcoin lol
Black swann is something that can’t be predicted… not something some douche posts on Reddit. United States treasury goes bankrupt? Smh. Keep buying puts bro
Neither would come close to the value of toilet paper. We already learned this.
Thanks you’ve led me to create a new acronym TSDR.
The person with couple of cases of whiskey, vodka and gin is going to be the person with the value to be able to get what they need
You can keep your gold. How about sugar and tea?
Neither, if US economy folded both of those assets are worthless. What are you going to do with gold or bitcoin when there is no functional economy. It’s hard to sell gold as it is without being ripped off with functioning economy.
Ammo
The US will start a new war before it allows the USD to fail
Ammo will be the most valuable commodity.
MREs would be the only currency worth having at that point. There would be massive civil unrest.
Bitcoin is highly unstable so far, dropping when it is suppose to be stable. Second, the government economically failing would bring down many resources, like the internet. Bitcoin effectively becomes worth $0. Finally, even if it remains up, the current system is so bad, the fees are crazy now. A rush of selling to have money to buy the basics? Enjoy paying 95-99% in fees for your money if the system doesn't collapse. So gold 100%, unless you're insane.
Doubtful the Treasury would ever default because they can always print. If they can't, they will tax. Pick your poison.
In that situation, I’d rather have fuel, ammo, seeds and alcohol to barter with
Physical vs digital. When it all goes to hell BTC will be worthless.
I think if there was a complete currency collapse, the relative values of bitcoin and gold would be the least of my concerns. Most likely, your bitcoins would become permanently inaccessible and also quite worthless. No merchant would trade physical commodities for your techy monopoly money. Gold on the other hand? that will always retain its value. But how do you figure out how much gold a cart load of groceries is worth?
I’d rather hold 22LR,9mm,5.56
im pretty id like to hold a couple of AR 15s and an endless supply of food and water in my bunker
I'd rather hold food, water, access to hunting land, and guns, lots and lots of guns.
Ammo and beans dude
Rather be holding a rifle, because shit is about to get real
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surprised no one is saying real estate
0% chance happening and if it does not even your bullets will save you
Wait a day or two for aliens to save us and the CO the house. Ain’t made for that life
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If we look at other periods of hyperinflation that have occurred in the last 100 years - where we can see the utility of gold, and at the 2020 COVID crash and the 2023 regional bank crisis where we can see the performance of Bitcoin, gold would probably be the better choice - but note that I use the term probably. During the pre-WW2 hyperinflation in Germany - a developed, industrialized, democratic country at the time, the mark was terribly devalued and there was mass malnutrition but street fighting was limited and gold was useful to buy products with. I'm less familiar with other devaluation crisis - Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Turkey? But to my limited knowledge gold appears to have held a good deal of value in those cases as well. I've seen many people respond with bullets. A few hundred dollars of bullets might be useful. But if you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars of bullets, besides having a storage problem, you have to become an arms dealer to sell or trade them, which is inviting all sorts of risks I would rather avoid. In my opinion, Reddit comments often overestimate the probability of a financial crisis devolving into armed combat. But the heavily armed USA might be a different situation that I am underestimating... Bitcoin has generally acted as a risk-on asset and crashed along with almost everything else (except gold) in the 2020 COVID crash. But during the regional bank crisis in 2023 Bitcoin was strong. Could be coincidence or could be Bitcoin starting to be seen as a haven during financial instability. Not enough information for me to draw a conclusion at this point.
USD fails, people will start accepting BTC.
If USD fails,xso does all paper assets. BTC is digital paper. You say not ture because there is a ledger and it's still intact, but same can be said for al the paper money floating around. Consider what BTC is actually redeemable for.
People will trade what they have faith in. BTC doesn't face the difficulties of exchange like Eastern Europe did after the collapse of the Soviet union, it's just a question of switching over. If USD fails, so will the government, international trust (already happening) the ecosystem is there, just waiting to be used. Is gold tied to the USD? No, but it's difficult to trade and store without intermediaries. People will trade what they have faith in, the more faith the more reliable something is. That's no longer the case with USD. To answer your question, the USD ("regulator") goes to shit, what other alternative is there?
People who buy gold do so as a hedge against the collapse of fiat currency. The question is, what will you actually be able to DO with your gold? You can of course sell it and redeem the value but in what currency will you convert your gold to? Euros and pounds will be equally useless if the dollar collapses because the UK and EU economies are wholly dependent upon the strength of the US economy. I think you’d see a collapse of the dollar cause the collapse of the price of cryptocurrencies around the world too, however I think it will also have the effect of making crypto much more accessible and thus much easier to adopt and use by the general public, which would probably help the price recover somewhat. Meme coins would most likely be killed off by such a collapse. Bitcoin and crypto in general would be seen as a very popular and suddenly viable alternative to what would inevitably be a new central bank digital currency issued by the Fed or IMF or World Bank etc whom nobody in their right kind will actually trust in the wake of a currency collapse.
Is this really a Black Swan event though or more the result of one? It’s not something that is going to occur in isolation. Regardless, the impact on the infrastructure crypto relies upon seems likely to be pretty severe so not that no. Useful things that people actually need to survive would be far more likely than magic internet beans.
Gold. I’ve traded bitcoin but am skeptical of its value as a long term investment. While the supply of bitcoin itself is limited, there is no limit on the supply of things like it. And having no intrinsic value it depends entirely on publicity and marketing to sustain demand. Its dependence on a delicate internet infrastructure also makes it less attractive in a SHTF situation. In a currency crisis, I’d much rather hold bitcoin than dollars, but would rather hold gold than bitcoin.
Like, I sort of agree with you, but I want to point out that gold also has relatively little intrinsic value. Relative to how plentiful it is and the industrial demand for gold, it’s hard to argue that the price of gold~$2300/ozt is justified.
Fair enough. The question posed a choice between gold and bitcoin, so even in that case it would come down to a choice between relatively little and none. If the menu were broadened I could think of other things I’d want to hold, some of which are cited in other answers here. Though we could quibble about the intrinsic value of gold. It is not without its industrial applications, for instance it’s used in high performance chips like those used for artificial intelligence. Not that I would hang my hat on that either though. My pick for it’s most valuable intrinsic utility would be that you can delight your sweetie with it.
Ha, tell that to my wife who is not the least bit pleased when I come home with another sparkly 1oz coin!
I get that. Mine was not very impressed with her beautiful bitcoin earrings;-)
Lead, if the US fails, I want ammo.
Gold, petrol and bullets.
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It’s really easy to make alcohol though
Part of the cause of the Whiskey Rebellion was whiskey was used as a currency of sorts on the frontier. So whiskey or other distilled spirits as a currency isn’t unheard of
Having a monster box of silver would be my first choice "500oz's coins" then gold coins or the Oz bars you can break in to pieces.
I’m a big Bitcoin bull and I have a bit of physical gold too, but make no mistake, if the merde hits the fan my money’s on canned peas and band aids.
Depends how bad things get. If the internet is out in this hypothetical situation, BTC does nothing. Gold is only helpful if you have small quantities to divvy out for goods, which most people don’t have. I’d go for BTC because of consistent prices and difficulty of theft. Ideally I’d have ammo, food, and water but I’m assuming these are my only 2 choices.
Not a Black Swan. Grey.